This is a kiosk-style vender booth where one can print a document, upload or download a file using a thumb drive, check e-mail, or even rent a laptop for $6.00 an hour. It’s not really such a big deal, except that as I think of the ICT advancements of the past 10 years, and then try to imagine what we might be seeing in the next 10, I wonder when it might be that I can leave my bulky laptop at home and be satisfied with the work I can do with a device that carry in my pocket– kinda like the cell phone I’m posting this blog with.
If only I could change the time zone on this phone with out screwing up the calendar. It might not wake me up in the morning at 3:00 for a 4:30 cab ride to the airport.
2¢ Worth!
10 years ago would you have considered a laptop like the one you have to be “bulky”? I still remember how I thought that having 2 floppy drives hooked up to an Apple IIe was the ultimate in laziness – “You mean you are too lazy to take one disk out and put the other disk in when you are copying – give me a break!” Maybe in 10 years we will have cell phone sized hardware that does everything your cell phone, PDA and laptop do now – but the screen and keyboard will be flexible and fold up and slide into a pocket in the hardware to be carried around. Who knows?
Seems to me the folding screen and keyboard will be ‘old fashioned’ in 10 years. I see something more like retinal projection or at least a little fold down holographic ‘heads up’ display like some military helmet mounted sights…and total voice command and data input replacing the keyboard. Put it all in a pair of really cool looking sunglasses!